Thrust should be on dialogic explorations directed towards understanding and exploring the moral universes of the ‘other’, and not by treating good and evil as binaries
Warcraft, directed by Duncan Jones, offers some lucid lessons for diplomacy. While the movie has received mixed reviews, and is comparatively less appreciated to Jones’s previous works such as Moon and Source Code, it has apparently met success at the Chinese box office. Given that it is a remake of an immensely popular video game series and thus limiting the imagination of its fans, the movie has disappointed a few, still it does offer significant insights into revisiting ways of doing diplomacy in the twenty-first century.
The movie opens with the struggling clan of Orcs being lead by the kind-hearted chieftain Durotan for survival. The Orcs survive by entering into a more-peaceful and “progressive” land of Azeroth and start fighting the humans for claim over the land. The storyline reaches its climax when Duraton starts questioning the intention of Gul’dan, the Orc, who wants to maximise power, trivialising the value of the lives of his own Orc clan. Accused as a traitor, Durotan is imprisoned by the Orc sorcerer Gul’dan. However Durotan’s conviction to uphold his values for the benefit of his tribe earns him sympathisers within the clan. The movie starts building up on this theme, with Garona (the half human and half orc) playing the key mediator between the humans and the Orcs. The essence of the movie, which thus makes it different from the likes of Star-Wars or the lord of Rings, emerges at this crucial juncture.
Warcraft is not a neat fight between good and evil, rather it is more symbolic of the Yin-Yang phenomenon of the Chinese philosophy of how opposing forces are in fact interdependent and emerge from each other. Yin and Yang are symbols of the Daoist philosophy that is about the positive and the negative, it does not divide the world into two opposing categories, into distinct paradigms, but illustrates how one gives way to the other.
The emphasis on the holism of phenomenon giving rise to a non-dualistic interpretation is epitomised by a dialogue delivered by Ben Schnetzer, playing the ally of the knight loyal to the king (role played by Travis Fimmel), who says “light comes from darkness and from darkness light”. This punch-line, reiterated at many climax scenes of the film, is what makes the movie relevant for understanding diplomacy. Warcraft does not advertise the victory of good over evil but is successful in establishing a dialectics between the two. It celebrates the grey-middle space of not taking sides between the Ocrs verses the human races as being either bad or good, but succeeds in illustrating that good-bad dichotomy or constructing paradigms can be a weak start in thinking the craft of war.
Another insight which emerges from the movie is that alliances need to be crafted and forged with the perceived “other” who is often considered to be an outcast. Understanding the “enemy’s moral universe” as lyn-Boyd Judson argued in her book highlighting Nelson Mandela’s role in transforming Muammar Gaddafi in the lockerbie case is an important pointer of negotiating and partnering with the “other”. In this context the role of Durotan and the “good” Orcs with a vision of fighting against the ‘bad’ Ocrs becomes significant.
Conceptualising diplomatic studies is witnessing a contemporary challenge both in theory and praxis. While many have succumbed to the view that given the onslaught of the digital age the skills of diplomats are no longer needed, some others have upheld the view that skills of statecraft are more relevant than before, and diplomats need to be bridge-builders rather than gatekeepers of parochially set “national” interest. The fuzziness has not only emerged given the plethora of actors and issues in international politics, but also the diffusion of power to other actors in the international canvas, where terrorist groups are making key inroads into the political social fabric of various countries.
Is the contemporary international scene set for characters playing the Orc verses the human fightIJ Are the optics of binaries limiting diplomatic practice from being more creative, thus stultifying diplomatic engagementIJ With big questions pertaining to the rise of China, negotiating with the terrorists or issues relating to internal security or dealing with insurgents, such dilemmas often bother both academics and policymakers.
Often actors in the world are categorised as bad or good, civil or uncivil, progressive or orthodox. Who does not remember Ronald Reagan’s enunciation of the “evil empire” in the 1980s or George W Bush’s term “axis of evil” in 2002. Such “otherisation” in international politics has been a diplomatic jargon, which perhaps needs to be revisited as it is more identified with Western ways of doing diplomacy. The big question therefore in the 21st century diplomacy is the central thrust one needs to place on dialogic explorations directed towards understanding and exploring the moral universes of the other, and not by treating good and evil as binaries.
This to my mind is both a challenge and opportunity to test not only the resilience of diplomatic practice but also on how international relations scholarship and praxis responds to understanding what the “lesser good or the greater evil” stands for. While this is a tall order, it demands that to move from confrontation to cooperation (on any aspect of international diplomacy) one perhaps needs to go back to the punch-line of the movie “light comes from darkness and from darkness light”. This could direct one towards hope, and help in establishing the dialectics between the good and the evil through diplomatic engagement.
(The writer is Assistant Professor, South Asian University, Department of International Relations, New Delhi. Her research interests include non-western sources of diplomatic practice, Asian philosophy and strategy, South Asia and trans-boundary water diplomacy)